Nature Near You: Birds – Backyard Birdwatching in Focus

In this off-season miniseries of Wildly Curious (formerly For the Love of Nature), Kim Baker takes over to explore nature right outside your door. In this episode, Kim dives into the world of backyard birds, sharing her newfound passion for birdwatching during the pandemic. From goldfinches to pine warblers, discover how slowing down and paying attention to these small creatures can create moments of wonder. Tune in for tips on identifying birds, the joys of birding, and how connecting with nature can bring calm amidst chaos. If you're new to birding, don’t miss this episode and check out our Birding 101 from Season 4!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to For the Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Kim Baker and it's miniseries time. If you're new here, welcome.
But know that I'm not your regular host. As some of you may know, after each season, Katy and Laura take a month off to recharge, plan and prep for the next season. They wanted to make sure you all had something to listen to in lieu of regular episodes and that you wouldn't miss them too much.
So, ta-da, here I am. Now, if you're thinking, who's this fast-talking, wisecracking, sometimes trips over her own words, human being, you know, your guess is as good as mine. My role in this podcast is the manager.
I may pop on to the episode time and again, but usually I'm working behind the scenes, on social media, or making sure Laura and Katy are staying on schedule for producing the season. It's a load of fun, and I'm happy to be here. So, as I mentioned earlier, this is part of our off-season mini-series.
For the next few weeks, I'm going to cover four topics that fit into a larger theme. This series I've been affectionately calling Nature Near You, which was born out of me sitting in my back deck and staring at all the cool stuff going on in my backyard. Now, I know everyone doesn't have a backyard, but no matter where you are, looking out an apartment window, playing in a park, walking down the street, or sunbathing on a houseboat, nature is all around you just waiting for you to stop and take a look.
In today's episode, we're going to talk about one of my new favorite subjects, birds. I'm excited, so let's jump into it. Growing up, I wasn't really into birds as much as other animals.
Besides Tobias, the moody human slash red-tailed hawk from KA. Applegate's children's book series, Animorphs, they didn't really light my fire. It wasn't until spring of 2020 in the throes of the pandemic when I started seeing songbirds in a new light.
And mostly, it's because of my dad. You see, my dad lives outside of Chicago in essentially a concrete jungle. He has a teeny tiny backyard, but it's more than enough space for half a dozen or so bird feeders.
When the pandemic started and he started working from home, he'd send pictures of the birds hanging out in his backyard. A lot of grackles, sparrows and finches, many annoying squirrels, some starlings in the winter, the occasional cardinal or blue jay, and a random hungry hawk that stumbled upon a backyard bird buffet. I also started working from home that spring, and I was pretty darn sad about having to cut social interaction and in public activities cold turkey.
One day, sad and probably eating cheese, I meandered into my backyard to see what all the fuss was about, watching these birds. And let me tell you, these birds were spectacular. Goldfinches, summer tanagers, Baltimore Orioles, blue grosbeaks, and indigo buntings turned my backyard into a literal riot of color.
Ruby-throwing hummingbirds buzzed around my head, and oddly enough, sometimes stared at themselves in my sunglasses, right in front of my face, before disappearing from view, doing their miniature drone-like acrobatics. Woodpeckers, from the small downy to the painfully large and awkward-piliated, drummed tree trunks and stole the tacky fat-and-nut suet cake. And in the dead heat of summer, one lone Eastern woodpewee screamed his name again and again and again from the treetops.
These flighted creatures were way cooler than the species I'd grown up seeing in the Midwest. I was hooked. In particular, I fell in love with this cute little olive and yellow fluff ball who would dramatically flutter down to one feeder when no other birds were around, the pine warbler.
Pine warblers, and I'm gonna be just like Katy, seto-fega-pinus? Sure, that's the Latin. They're truly tiny birds.
They're three to three and a half inches long with a wingspan of up to nine inches. And they weigh from three-tenths to five-tenths of an ounce. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes them as yellowish birds with olive backs, whitish bellies, and two prominent white wing bars on gray wings.
Adult males are the brightest, females and immature are more subdued and can even appear gray-brown. They eat mostly caterpillars and other arthropods, specifically in sex, but they also eat fruits and seeds, especially during the colder months. They're part of the American New World Warbler family, Perulidae, which includes more than 100 species of yellow, green, blue, orange or chestnut birds with patches or stripes of black and white.
Pine warblers have a smaller migratory range from South-Southeastern US to North-Northeastern US or Southern Canada. And some of the southern birds are non-migratory altogether. Other warbler species have a much larger range, flying from Brazil to Alaska each year.
True to their name, pine warblers spend most of their time in the tops of pine trees. Although they are much more likely than other warblers to come down to bird feeders, seeing them at a feeder is considered a rare treat. Ken Kaufman of Audubon Magazine said, because these birds are so tiny, so hyperactive, so good at hiding behind leaves, most people never see them at all.
But once you start looking for them, warblers are like magical prizes that come into your life as a reward for paying close enough attention. And that's truly what it felt like. A little reward for paying attention in the mid to late afternoon most days.
I sent blurry iPhone photos and better Audubon photos of the pine warbler and others to my dad. And when he saw a particularly cool bird in Illinois, he'd send me quality Nikon Canon level photos back. In a way, slowing down to watch the birds in my backyard helped keep my dad and me connected throughout the pandemic shutdowns and travel restrictions.
And I know that at least for me, watching the tiny birds get into scuffles over tiny food and live their tiny lives somehow helped temporarily calm my big complex feelings and anxieties about the world. And it felt nice. This whole story may or may not change your opinions on birds, which is fine.
If you're interested in giving birding a go, I highly recommend listening to our Birding 101 episode from season four and downloading the Merlin Bird ID app. You can look up birds by sound recording, photo, or a sweet quiz that can help you decide through the location, size, color, and some other options what bird you're staring at. And the next time you're outside, try to stand still for a few moments, take some deep breaths, and observe what's going on around you.
You never know what incredible creatures you might find. That's all for this many episode. Until next time, bye everyone.
Bye, everyone.